Rating: 
Summary: I'm sorry...
Review: ...but I wasn't able to get far in this book. I came to it with high expectations, for I've enjoyed Mr. Cornwell's hard-bitten sailing adventures and his Richard Sharpe series, and thought he might make a go of it with Stonehenge. I am intrigued why and how Megalithic monuments were built, and archaeology can only provide nameless clues. However, after a few chapters I could no longer take the primitive dialogue and unlikable characters. After reading a number of other equally unsatisfying pre-historical novels, I think the problem may not be mine, but is the general difficulty, for any author no matter how skilled, of writing a good story out of whole cloth, with no written, personalized, historical framework. After all, we can assign not a single person's name to Stonehenge; there are no chronicles from this pre-literate time. Thus there's nothing to force a real structure into a narrative, to present known conflicts of interest. We have no set of expectations for an author to work against, or surprise us by. This situation is quite different from writing truly historical novels set in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, or, potentially, China (see the Judge Dee series) and now the Maya. Instead, for a Neolithic or Paleolithic story, an author has to be fabulously creative, constructing a whole intricate world of social and economic relations as well as engrossing characters, from almost sheer imagination. Maybe it will take someone with talents in creating science fiction or fantasy worlds to do it right, or perhaps a collaboration. (Or I may, unfortunately, simply not know who has done it already?) I still have this book, in hopes I gave up too early and I'll give it another go someday.
Rating: 
Summary: Long but necessarily so
Review: I actually liked this book, despite what I felt were rather poor reviews by some other readers. I have read the Warlord Series by Cornwell and although I hated the first book, the other two were thrilling. I ventured into this leary of Cornwell's tendency to overdo the scenery descriptions and his habit of repeating information as if the reader is too dense to have absorbed it the first 10 times. Well, Cromwell held true to these bad habits, but the story moved along reasonably well and kept me interested. I liked the character of Saban right from the start and was eager to find out what happened to this man who Cromwell fictionally credits for the building of Stonehenge although he was truly a simple victim of circumstance. The other characters are also interesting and it is a nice dramatic look at what life may have been like 3000BC. I particularly liked the author's historical notes at the end of the book that stressed the fictionalized account of the building and mentions the story locations by their modern day names. I have been to this area and I was then able to truly visualize the situations. I would only have suggeseted a map at the front of the book as opposed to the enlightenment of this detail at the end of the story. My only other criticism of the story is that a lot of stone erecting takes place before we finally get around to the overly detailed erection of Stonehenge. However, it was interesting in theory and I would imagine that much of this same trial and error really happened before they were able to create Stonehenge. All in all, an interesting book if you want a good historical FICTION. Anyone reading this for history is out of luck - there just isn't anything on which to base an historical work about this monument available for an author to use as a resource
Rating: 
Summary: A great read.
Review: I bought this book after reading a copy from the library. Its a great addition to any book collection. The story is set during the bronze age, such an archaic and mysterious time. The story is centered around the construction of stonehenge, and though no one knows why it was created, the author puts forward a great fictional explination. The story is fascinating, as with all of Bernard Cornwells books you get a great deal of knowledge from each chapter and you get a real sense of what life is like for the characters portrayed in the book. The late Stone Age - Early bronze age is a time not much is known about. From a few archeological discoveries historians have pieced together a rough idea of how life was for those early humans and Bernard Cornwell takes that one step further in this great book, Stonehenge.
Rating:
Summary: A richly imagined and charactered historical novel.
Review: Stonehenge [2000 B.C.] by Bernard Cornwell Bernard Cornwell's particular literary talent lies in his marvelously rich imagination and ability to extrapolate relevant, intelligent, and highly entertaining stories from the merest and scantest of archeological and historical data. In this novel, he vividly imagines the people who built Stonehenge well before the time of Christ. His characters are always very realistic and well relatable to 21st Century readers. Whether writing of the sea in his Sharpe series or dealing with Arthurian material in his Warlord Chronicles, all with grand stage settings and unforgettable background events, the lives of ordinary people become as true and relevant as the latest breaking news. This present book deals with three brothers as different as brothers can be, but united in their vision of what the great temple we know as Stonehenge should be. Cornwell includes a lot of creative pagan mythology here and the influence of such scholars as Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung can readily be discerned. But don't be misled; this is still an action-packed page-turner as are all of Cornwell's books. Great for those exhausting dog days of August.
Rating:
Summary: Better then Expected
Review: I'm a late start to Bernard Cornwell, and before I picked up this book, I had only read his Holy Grail series. While I enjoyed the seiries immensely, sometimes I had to push myself through particularly tiresome passages.
"Stonehenge" was no different. There is a ridiculous amount of detail sometimes about trivial actions, such as the polishing and shaping of the stones. While necessary to describe the action, I think once is enough. Five times is four times too many to have to read about the shaping of a giant stone.
However, the story line was excellent. It was not overwhelmingly predictable, and I came to love and care about the character of Saban. He was portrayed as a normal human man with normal human failings. I was afraid that Cornwell would portray Saban as a sterotypical barbarian, but happily, while including some heathen-ish behavior, he refrained from writing a story about Ogg the cave boy or some other ridiculous rubish.
His research was impressive. When reading the historical note at the end, it was obvious that he took much care in including as many factual details as possible. To truly appreciate the book, you absolutely can not skip the historical note section; the detail is astounding.
Despite his tendancy to describe things to the point that the reader is within an inch of his or her sanity, Bernard Cornwell does spin a good yarn, weaving facts and fiction togethor quite nicely, and so I must recommend "Stonehenge" to all self-respecting lovers of historical fiction.
Rating:
Summary: A very entertaining hypothesis
Review: I think I read this book in one sitting. This book is delightfully entertaining and very detailed. It is obvious that Cornwell did his homework and researched this topic rather extensively before writing anything. It is true that he has taken some liberties in adding his own opinions, but so do most historians. The plot is captivating and Cornwell's use of words and description make the story come alive in a way that most other stories do not. There were certain points in the story where I actually could feel the pain of the characters - it was scary... not many stories have that effect on me. I highly reccommend this book to anyone who enjoys an intellectually stimulating and exciting book.
Rating: 
Summary: Stereotypical tale of lust, greed, and construction (?)
Review: This is the story of the construction of Stonehenge itself, as Bernard Cornwell imagines it. It centers on a family of a father and three boys. The father is wise and just, and of course wishes to live with his neighbors in peace, but events have a way of going in different directions. Eventually the father passes from the story, and his three sons struggle for power among themselves, and compete with their neighbors for it too. The three sons might be referred to as the killer, the builder, and the priest, though all three characters do their fair share of killing. The aforementioned killer is evil, and wishes to build the temple at Stonehenge (the name is never used in the story) in order to call on the gods to make him powerful, so he can conquer his neighbors. The priest is something of a lunatic, born crippled, who rants, has visions, and drives everyone else with a relentless dream of finishing the temple in a particular fashion at a particular time. The builder is the story's protagonist, a simple man who wants only to be left alone with his family, in peace. The book has several problems, not the least of which is the aforementioned frame of the story. It struck me as a version of several plots from Shakespeare and other classic literature, dressed up with ancient warrior tattoos and these rocks they push around. Many people have commented about the length of the story, though I don't think that's entirely fair: the book weighs in at 434 pages, of which the last few are an afterword. The problem isn't length, exactly, it's that the plot takes a long while to get anywhere. Even more annoying than that is the issue of religion. The priests apparently decide that they want something, and then tell the people that the gods have decreed it. This makes for many irritating characters and events, and you never really get away from them. While I enjoyed this book, I think (know) that I have and will enjoy Mr. Cornwell's Sharpe series a great deal more.
Rating: 
Summary: Stonehenge
Review: I started this book with great anticipation as I like novels about the pre-historic era-and I like Mr. Cornwell's writing. However, I was extremely disappointed. It seemed very contrived to me, very long, very boring. I did finish it-I kept thinking it would get better. It didn't. I enjoyed the warlord series, the starbuck series and the sharpe series. All excellent. This one? Don't bother.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing!
Review: I really enjoyed this. The author uses a lot of details from the actual archaeological record of Stonehenge and the surrounding area and builds up a fictional tale of how it all could have happened. There is a lot of icky violence (primitive warfare and oogy religious stuff) but I'd recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Too long!
Review: I thought the book was good but it went in great lengths and I felt that there was little character development.
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